Why do you
suppose Jesus told His disciples to rush when He sent them on mission to
spread the Good News of the Gospel? He
told them: “Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves. Carry
no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way.” This is a message of urgency. There was to be no dilly-dallying. Time is short. There are souls to save, so do not drag your
feet or get derailed from the most important mission: to announce that the
Today’s liturgy invites us to
recapture the urgency of helping other people come to an awareness of the love
God has for them. Too many of our fellow
human beings are lost, unaware of the love of God, and driven even further from
God’s love by the enticements of what
On the very day of the Confirmation
of our teens, May 12th, Pope Benedict was at Fatima in
"In our time,
in which the faith in many places seems like a light in danger of being snuffed
out for ever, the highest priority is to make God visible in the world and to
open to humanity a way to God. And not to any god, but to the God who had spoken
on Sinai, the God whose face we recognize in the love borne [to] the very end
in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen."
My brothers and
sisters, all around us people do not yet know the love of God. How many people even within our own families
are not yet aware of the importance of living life in a manner that works toward
their salvation? How often do our
friends, co-workers, and even relatives, feel free to point out the sins of the
Church as if to say that such sins are only committed by the Church? And how often does such talk become an easy
way to avoid coming to terms with one’s own need for working out their
salvation?
And worst of all, how
often do we fall silent, having nothing to say, or wanting to change the
subject? Remember the line from the
First Letter of Peter: “In your hearts, reverence Christ as Lord. Always be
prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that
is in you'" (1 Peter 3:15).”
My brothers and sisters, the time is short. The need is urgent. Too many souls are in danger of being lost
from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Too many people live without hope. We
have got to care more. And that care has
to lead us to get over our aversion to speaking up and defending our Faith.
St. Francis Xavier lived at the height of the Reformation
and within the short 46 years of his life, he traveled from Europe to the end
of the earth teaching the faith we share and baptizing, get this, 100,000
people from
You and I are not another St. Francis Xavier, but we can
glean from his example the insistent urgency of helping people come to know that
the
When Jesus commissioned the 72 and gave them their instructions,
He meant that they were to have no aim or activity apart from proclaiming the
Good News in a spirit of brotherly love.
We can at least
make a decision here and now that we will defend our Faith and our Church, come
what may. It’s easy. When faced with a snide comment about our
Faith, we can simply say, “I don’t give you permission to talk that way about
something I love so much!”
Lastly, I want to thank you for your
faithfulness. These are difficult times;
and yet here you are, faithfully loving the Lord, hungering for His Word, and
yearning to be fed with the Bread of Life and the Cup that satisfies our deepest
thirsts. We know the satisfaction of
this closeness to our Lord in the Eucharist, so beautifully described in Isaiah
as a babe nursing at its mother’s breast.
Come now to the Table and be fed.
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